Guy Gardner #7: Mexicali Gold

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TGH: Welcome back! When we last left Guy, he had just had his ring stolen by an alien dressed as a 19th-century prospector. If the cover is any indication, it only goes downhill from there.

QP: Things look bleak for our intrepid exposition warrior.

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DN: I dunno, we start with Sally straight hip tossing a knife wielding alien, so it could be worse

QP: Three straight issues of Sally being the bomb.com.

DN: /yourmom.

TGH: Guy’s all sad about being robbed like an idiot, and Sally’s over there handling a third of his fight for him.

DN: Sally spinoff. Should have happened.

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QP: Knife alien decides to get inexplicably racist with Sally. Or maybe speciest?

DN: Let’s go with speciest for all our sakes.

QP: Very well.

TGH: Guy shakes it off and runs to her rescue, so she only gets kicked in the face, making her a better hero than him so far.

QP: Meanwhile, Yosemite Sam tries to get in the fight, only to discover he doesn’t know how to use the ring. Insert sad trombone.

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TGH: He made a fist appear, surely that counts for something. Meanwhile Guy beats up a woman for a whole page.

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QP: Once all the ladies are knocked out cold, Guy confronts the prospector fella about the ring. Prospector fella then supplies a premature ring-jaculation.

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DN: Aaand Guy gets captured by all 3 alien thugs without Sally for backup.

QP: Lesson learned: never let Sally get knocked out.

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TGH: Luckily our prospector friend wasn’t able to get the ring to work fully, since he now has to keep Guy alive long enough to teach them how to use it. And he was about to get his eyes carved out too, damn it.

QP: Meanwhile, back in Hal Jordan’s racist fantasy land…

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DN: Tom “Pieface” Kalmaku is dressed as something kinda racist and Hal get a message from the guardian of exposition. Goldface’s three alien thugs get names!

TGH: Pie, you can take that damn costume off already!

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QP: Two pages of telling us who these alien insurgents are. I feel like by this point we probably didn’t need to know. Or care.

TGH: Seriously, the exposition is somehow even more over the top in this issue than usual. “The one guy steals things!” Yeah, thanks, we saw that. “One is an assassin!” Yep. “One is strong!” Uh-huh.

QP: It’s really setting these guys up to be some kinda hardcore enemy, so in sure they’ll end up turning into Guy’s regular rogues gallery. Also Repo is clearly just Morph from the X-Men in a jaunty hat.

DN: Well Jocasta is Deathbird.

QP: Basically.

DN: I’ll need to see if they get a mention in the 93-94 edition of Who’s Who in the DC Universe.

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TGH: Hal lets us know that he plans to approach from the ground by foot as he lands on the ground with his feet.

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TGH: Then Hal starts to tell us how he plans to stop all of the bad guys, not realizing that bullets are coming right at him.

QP: Thank God he invited a sidekick along to save his ass.

DN: Yeah, Pie saves Hal, someone with a ring that can do absolutely anything, from being shot in his face parts.

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TGH: Hal, who I swear insulted Guy for making a bat with his ring once, makes a bat with his ring to stop the gunmen.

QP: And goes back to running his mouth about how to stop the aliens, rather than actually finding and stopping the aliens.

TGH: Pieface holds Hal tenderly.

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TGH: Meanwhile, in the place where the actual plot is happening, Guy comes up with one of his patented bad lies and offers to work for Goldface.

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DN: After Repo finally figures how to knuck Guy in the face with the yellow ring.

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QP: Which apparently knocks something loose in Guy’s brain, because it dawns on him that he might be able to control the ring even if he’s not wearing it. Which I would think might’ve been something he’d have tested out by now, but who knows.

TGH: Is that a thing that can happen outside of this comic?

DN: Also Goldface is drawn like he does steroids for breakfast.

TGH: Seriously, he looked nothing like that before.

QP: It’s Darksied in a Goldface costume.

DN: Happy Halloween, all!

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TGH: Guy uses his brain to make Repo impotent again.

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TGH: Piston feels left out and tries to throw an ionizer at everyone, which causes Goldface to get really pissed. Guy has an idea, and that idea is that he has no idea what the hell that thing is.

QP: “Piston, leave the obvious maguffin alone!”

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TGH: Then Guy gets mad at Hal for probably knowing what it is. Probably because if Hal was there he would explain it for 2 pages.

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QP: Jocasta decides Repo can’t handle the ring, and takes it from him. She is kind of a mensch tho. 30 seconds and she’s already throwing knives.

DN: Stick with what you know!

TGH: Guy manages to out-will her knife and misses yet another opportunity to be blinded.

DN: Goldface ring jacks his henchlady albino alien.

QP: Who is colored like she’s got bad kabuki make up on, rather than being an albino.

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TGH: Goldface talks about how much willpower he has, since he made some armor and is invincible. And roided down a bit from that last panel.

QP: Goldface waxes poetic about his ultimate evil scheme: wrecking the price of gold. This guy is Ron Paul’s worst nightmare.

TGH: If you’re obsessed with gold, isn’t ruining the price of gold a terrible plan?

QP: Makes it easier to buy it on eBay tho.

TGH: What is he even going to do with himself after this?

QP: Be shinier than everyone else.

TGH: People could make their own Goldface costumes for cheap! I don’t think anyone is going to come begging at your feet for a commodity you have a ton of but nobody wants, Goldface.

QP: Goldface failed Econ 101.

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TGH: Goldface tries to shoot a beam through Guy’s head, but Guy uses the rest of his energy to stop it, which, not gonna lie, is kind of baller. Then he faints. Not as baller.

DN: If you cover up the right side of the page, Guy looks like he’s trying to pass a shipment of razorblades dipped in lemon juice.

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TGH: Once Guy comes to, he brags that Goldface needs him to use the ring. Goldface agrees that he is correct, and will not attempt to use the ring again.

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QP: Goldface makes him a bargain: he gets the ring back of he fridges Sally. I would like to go on the record as saying that I am opposed to this plan.

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DN: NOOOOOO!

TGH: Guy’s just like “Welp, okay!” and goes to it.

DN: “Time to kill a call girl, must be Thursday.”

QP: I mean, pretty much all he did in New York was terrorize prostitutes so it seems fitting.

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QP: But first! Some more bullshit with Hal.

TGH: Hal takes out some guards with a tree, in the most boring way possible. Really, just by being Hal it’s the most boring way possible.

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TGH: I don’t think Hal or the artists know what a stethoscope looks like.

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TGH: Pieface asks if maybe Hal is being kind of a dick, and Hal’s just like “YEAH, SO?”

QP: His entire chunk of dialogue here just comes off like the douchiest douche that ever douched. Hal basically tells Pieface that he wishes all these new heroes would get off his lawn.

DN: Hal Jordan is the ugly wallpaper of people.

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TGH: Meanwhile, I guess Sally is actually dead? What the hell?

QP: Good job, Guy.

DN: PADME NOOOOOOO!

QP: DO NOT WAAAAANT!

TGH: Maybe Repo is just a really shitty doctor?

QP: He stole his degree from alien medical school.

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TGH: Guy almost gets his ring back, when Hal’s amazing plan, Operation: Fake Hal walks through the door. Hal’s right on the other side of the door! I thought you were supposed to come in another way or something.

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TGH: Guy’s just like “fuck it” and just starts kicking the shit out of everyone.

DN: Which is the only plan Guy seems to have that works.

TGH: The power was inside him all along!

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QP: And he lets us know that Sally isn’t actually dead, just in suspended animation. Because I guess that’s a thing he can do with his ring? Idkwtfeven.

TGH: He didn’t have the ring when he choked her. Goldface still has it even now.

QP: I guess like he deflected the ring knife? I don’t know man, I didn’t write this story.

DN: To be fair, mentally controlling the ring is a thing that happens. Kyle Rayner does it later in the decade, I’m pretty sure.

QP: Mentally controlling it to put someone in a coma tho?

DN: Yeah, that seems a bit much.

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TGH: Guy gets Piston to punch down a door, revealing Hal and Pieface in phase 2 of their plan, Operation: Let’s Just Kind of See Where This Goes From Behind This Door. Hal’s like “No, Gardner, you ruined my plan of being behind this door!”

QP: Hal gives a wonderful face palm that I want to use everyday of my life. He looks like he just crapped his pants and can’t believe it.

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TGH: Guy gets knifed by the albino and proceeds to just plant her damn face into the ground.

QP: Pretty sure he got that move from DoA.

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DN: And uses that momentum to cut a wire on the…gold machine, or whatever.

QP: Which makes it do…something when Goldface shoots at Guy and misses.

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TGH: Guy made the ring fire with his brain. Which, again, is kind of badass.

QP: Ahhh ok, missed that.

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TGH: So now the gang is encased in gold, except for Goldface’s ring finger, so Guy can get his ring back.

QP: Goldface isn’t giving him the full bird, just the feather. I mean, I assume, because there is literally no other reason to have his hand out like that. Goldface is a 5th grader.

TGH: I feel like there would be some melted limbs on the other guys.

QP: I mean, as we discussed in Guy Gardner Reborn number one, they should be hella dead.

DN: That would be some Game of Thrones shit for a 90s book.

QP: Goldface is not the mother of dragons.

TGH: Hal demands that Guy send Goldface to Oa for him, and Guy tells him to piss off, since he’s going to Amurrican court.

QP: Which is fair, I think.

DN: I’m sure there’s legislation to try illegal aliens in the DCU by now.

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TGH: Pieface finally just tells Hal that Guy is right. Hal is all sad because he lost to Guy.

QP: Guy is sad about it all too, tho, because he didn’t get to punch Hal’s stupid face in.

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TGH: The issue ends with Guy flying off into the sunset, having finally accomplished a thing.

QP: Hooray! Guy heroed! Successfully!

DN: He does put Sally in a comfy looking yellow lazy boy, too, as a “sorry for fake strangling you” gift.

TGH: With a seat belt even! Good thinking!

QP: Go Team Don’t Fridge Sally!

TGH: This was actually a pretty good issue, if you remove most of the Hal pages. Guy loses his ring, then still manages to kick everyone’s asses and use his ring remotely to fool everyone.

QP: Yeah, the Hal pages were like accidental raisins in your chocolate chip cookie.

TGH: Next issue: Lobo finally comes back! Maybe things are looking up from here on out.

QP: Yaaaaaay!

DN: Looking forward to that!

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QP: Meanwhile: mail time!

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QP: Mostly just a lot of brown-nosing this month, actually. With the exception of one gentleman by the name of Mr. Man who berates Guy for dumping Ice.

DN: Well, he ain’t wrong. Dumping by pushing down flights of stairs Is pretty effing terrible.

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QP: Wait. Wait. Best letter ever. “Have you ever noticed you have two right feet?” YES.

DN: HA!

TGH: They didn’t fix it fast enough.

QP: And then the response, where Guy presumably has sex with an amputated right leg. That’s the only thing I can figure.

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QP:Someone else proposes a Kilowog parade balloon for the Macy’s parade, which I think is a movement we can all get behind.

DN: Uh, yes, please.

90’s Ad Showcase:

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TGH: Fire in the Sky, based on the true story about someone lying about an abduction.

QP: Fire in the Sky has a pretty good cast considering I’ve never heard of it. I guess Robert Patrick is the abductee guy? Unless maybe he’s the alien.

DN: Just rewatch The X-Files, you’re better off.

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DN: A Kindergarten Cop rehash with Burt Reynolds.

QP: Oh man, I loved Cop and a Half that one weekend we got free Showtime.

TGH: Burt Reynolds, back when he wasn’t one step from the grave.

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QP: So I guess I didn’t realize that Knightfall came so close to the death of Superman.

DN: Oh yes. And Emerald Twilight is just around the bend.

QP: Was there a similar death/dismemberment of Wonder Woman storyline that happened a few months after?

TGH: She’s running the JLA I think, so I don’t know if she leaves the scene for a while.

DN: Nah, Wondy makes it through the 90s relatively unscathed. Artemis replaces her for a bit, I think.

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QP: Fake news magazine cover about Superman being dead with a fake quote from Dan Rather. Which…surely there is some Dan Rather equivalent in the DCU that they could’ve quoted instead…

DN: Clark Kent.

QP: There you go.

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TGH: Mark Waid was supposed to be on You Bet Your Life but he was beaten by a blind refrigerator repairman. Mark Waid got fridged.

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QP: Some game for Sega that let’s you remix Kris Kross and C+C Music Factory songs. Which I would’ve played the hell out of in 1993. If I ever got a Sega. 🙁

TGH: Those make-your-own-video Sega CD games often make the list for worst game ever.

QP: Hm. I wonder if Zillions ever reviewed them. Seems like the kind of thing they would’ve had a scathing review for.

Next Time:

QP: Next time on Colon Warrior: A big reunion between Guy and Lobo!

DN: Lobro!

QP: They have tea and bake cookies. The end.

TGH: I assume much punching will commence. Over tea.

QP: Guy will bake special gluten-free biscuits for Dawg.

TGH: Lobo takes his jacket back and they call it even.

DN: Duke of Queensbury rules, for the jacket and the good biscuits.

TGH: Final Destination, no items.

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